HEL Spring 2011
Unit 6
Old English
Orthographic:
They had had runes, but primarily for
inscriptional uses
Jam OE sounds into the Latin
alphabet
Adopted by Irish
missionaries
“Irish
changes”: for eth and “yogh”
“yogh”
Thorn and wynn
Old English
Alphabet:
A B C D E F G H I
L M N O P R S T U X Y
+ Æ æ Þ þ Đ ð
ƿ 7
Phonemic writing
system: each letter stands for one phoneme:
NO silent letters
Some different
pronunciations of some of the consonants, but they are allophones
If you get it wrong,
it would probably just sound weird; you would not create a new word
Voiceless stops:
p = /p/
t = /t/
cw = /kw/
c = /k/ or
(palatalized) /č/
Palatization of c before front vowel and after at the
end of a word (compare Modern English)
/k/:
candol (candle)
cuman (to come)
/č/:
cinn (‘chin’)
ceosan (‘choose’)
dic (ditch)
BUT, palatization
is not present when the c originally
(in prehistoric OE) came before a back vowel:
“Some knowledge
of the history of the language is required to distinguish whether c represented a palatal or velar stop in
any given word” (A. Campbell)
often
modern English equivalent can be guide:
cynn ( > *kunni, ‘kin’)
celan ( > *koljan, ‘to cool’)
cæg ( ‘key’)
þancian (‘to
thank’)
Voiced stops
b = /b/
Beowulf
beorht (‘bright’)
lamb
(‘lamb’)
d = /d/
Dryhthelm
dohter (daughter’)
sendan (‘to send’)
g = /g/, /j/, /ɣ/
/g/ before back vowels,
before consonants, doubled and ng
frogga (‘frog’)
god
(‘good’)
singan /siŋgan/ (‘to sing’)
palatization
to /j/ before front vowel and finally
(Compare modern
English)
gear
(‘year’)
geoc (‘yoke’)
fæger (‘fair’)
bodig (‘body’)
cæg (‘key’)
BUT, not always
voiced
velar fricative /ɣ/ after and between back vowels, and after /l/ and /r/ :
this
sound later developed in Middle English into /w/
lagu (‘law’)
fugol (‘bird’, ‘fowl’)
belg (‘bag’,
‘bellows’)
wearg (‘accursed,
outlaw’)
Fricatives:
Allophone pairs: voiced when
intervocalic or following a voiced sound
s= /s/ or /z/
(voiced)
not
voiced /s/:
stanas (‘stones’)
west
(‘west’)
sæ (‘sea’)
cyssan (‘to kiss’)
hus (“house’)
voiced
/z/:
wise
(‘way, manner’)
nosu (‘nose’)
bosm (‘embrace,
bosom’)
f= /f/ or /v/
(voiced)
not
voiced /f/
fisc (‘fish’)
fæder (‘father’)
fif (‘five’)
hæft (‘handle’)
pyffan (‘to puff’)
voiced
/v/
heofon (‘heaven’)
giefan (‘to give’)
seofon (‘seven’)
hræfn (‘raven’)
lifde (‘he lived’)
ofer (‘over’)
Þ þ / Đ ð : used indiscriminately
for /θ/ and /ð/
not
voiced /θ/
þæt (‘that’)
þegn (‘attendant, thane’)
treowþ (‘good faith’)
moþþe (‘moth’)
voiced /ð/
baþian (‘to bathe’)
fæþm (‘embrace’)
oþer (‘other’)
h:
/h/ at beginning
of a word
Hroþgar
hycg (‘thought’)
helpan (‘to help’)
hwæt (‘shut the fuck
up, I’m about to drop some mad alliteration in your ear’)
/x/ (unvoiced
velar fric.): following a back vowel
dohter (‘daughter’)
ðurh (‘through’)
/ç/ (unvoiced palatal fric):
following a front vowel
riht (‘right’)
niht (‘night’)
cniht (‘boy’)
Nasals and
approximates
n = /n/ or /ŋ/
(before g or c)
niht
neowol (‘steep’)
nacod (‘naked’)
singan (‘to sing’
ancor (‘anchor’)
m = /m/
mæl (‘time’)
mægen (‘might,
strength’)
l = /l/
lagu (‘sea, lake’)
leod (‘people, race,
nation’)
r = /r/
rec
(‘smoke’)
ræd (‘advice,
council’)
w = /w/
wæter
wræc (‘misery, distress’)
wordhord
(‘word-hoard’)
Digraphs:
sc
= /š/
scip
fisc
scyldig
(‘guilty’)
sculan (‘must’)
cg
= /dg/
ecg
(‘edge’)
secgan (‘to say’)
secg (‘man’)
Everything is
pronounced:
Funky consonant
clusters:
cniht (‘boy’ >
knight)
cnawan (‘to know’)
gnornian (‘to
lament’)
gnawan (‘to gnaw’)
hlaford (‘lord’
< ‘hlaf-weard’)
hlud (‘loud’)
hnutu (‘nut’)
hnah (‘lowly, poor’)
hreðer (‘breast,
heart’)
hraþe (‘quickly’)
hwil (‘time’ >
while)
hwylc (‘each’ >
which)
hwyrfan (‘to
turn’)
wrecca (‘exile’)
wrað (‘hostile’)
wrecan (‘force, avenge,
punish’)
writan (‘cut, engrave,
write’)
Vowels:
Like IPA symbols: good old common IE
vowels (use your other langs.)
Long
and short vowels: length of pronunciation
God and gōd
Every ‘y’ is a
vowel = front rounded vowel (not in Mod E)
æ
= cat
Opening of Beowulf (manuscript)
Sound Changes:
Umlaut /
mutation/ i-mutation
happened
in Prehistoric OE
Effects all
Germanic languages except Gothic
Vowels move
forward or forward and up
remember
the face
the
mutated face!
u > y
o > e
a > æ
a > æ > e
Due to regressive assimilation, cased by the
presence of an /i/ or /j/ in following syllable
Part of an affix: derivational or inflectional
Your mouth
apparatus moves up and forward gets ready to make the i/j
(high front sound), affect the preceding sound unintentionally
i/j pulls
things into its orbit
*rum + jan = ryman
*full + jan = fyllan (fill)
*gos + iz = ges
*fot + iz =
Once the vowel is
mutated, the affix becomes redundant, so the ending drops off
or
it simplifies -jan > –an
Thus, you talk
about i-mutation with words that no longer have an “i” in them
Most common
ending that cause i-mutation:
*-jan to form verbs
*-iz plural marker; *-i dative singular marker
full + jan > *fulljan > fylljan > fyllan (fill)
fot
+ iz > *fotiz > fetiz > fet
Dative: fot + i > foti
> fet
Origin of many
verbs
So-called
irregular nouns:
mutated
vowel nouns
note: this is quite
different from vowel gradation in verbs
man / men
goose / geese
foot / feet
mouse / mice
Source
of “irregularity” in OE pronunciation.
There are some
words with a c or g which are not palatalized before
front vowels
ges
celan
keen,
PGmc *konjo-
kin
PGmc *kunjo-
“you gotta know the etymological
history of a word”
old school
approach to teaching OE: make you a philologist
Old English Lexicon
We can only deal
with EXTANT vocabulary:
Number of words
comparison w/ OED is really meaningless
Old English
vocabulary was almost purely Germanic
Much less likely
than ME and ModE to accept loan words
3% non-Gmc
cf. ModE 70%
Modern English’s
Germanic core:
the
most high frequency words, naturally
83% of 1000 most commonly used words
in ModE are Gmc
Old English in
Modern English:
Little or no
change to words:
heofan,
word, sittan
Some change in
word (esp. meaning):
doom,
dream, sellan, steorfan
Only survives in
dialects/expressions:
brook,
ang, wer, willy-nilly
Word Formation
Old English
relied heavily on its own resources to extend its vocabulary
much
more likely to create a new word
than borrow a foreign one (unlike modern English)
Wide variety of
derivational affixes, many of which survive in Modern English:
Prefixes:
after-,
be-, for-, ge-, mis-, ofer-
Suffixes:
-dom, -nes,
-had, -ful, -sum, -lic
-ere (cf. L -tor)
Compounding
Common in many
Germanic languages
hamstede
sunnebeam
wifmann
boccræft
rimcræft
stæfcræft
tungolcræft
KENNING
many
synonyms in OE poetry (for alliteration)
this
is one particular way of creating metaphorical
compounds/collocations
heaven’s candle
battle-light
hron-rad
“whale’s road”
NOT heaðo-swat “battle sweat/blood”
here-wæd
“battle clothes”
the
term kenning gets abused; it’s borrowed from later Icelandic poetry which used
kennings in a much more complex way
Mod English has a
number of Amalgamated Compounds:
one
(or more) of the elements no longer has independent meaning; perhaps can tell
it’s a compound, but not understand it literally
daeges eage
> daisy
tadpole (toad-head)
world
(wer + ald, “age/ life of
man”)
barn
(bere-ærn, “barley-place”)
Many ways of incorporating Latin/Christian
concepts into OE, in addition to simple loanwords
Hybrids
(Latin loanword + OE derivational affix):
Preost-had
bishop-setl
bishop-ric
Cristen-dom
Loan
translation / Loan rendition (my favorite)
Based on an etymological understanding
of the foreign word
The
foreign word/concept is translated bit-for-bit into OE
OE : Latin
For-set-nyss:
preposition
An-horn
: unicorn
Thri-ness : trinitas
God-spel
: evangelium
Reste-dæg
: sabbatam
Leorning-cniht
: discipulus
Haelend : Jesus
Cf.
Crist :
Christ
Mt 1:21, “His
name is Jesus, for he will save the people from their sins”
Imbue existing
Old English words with new specialized Christian meanings
Easter
< Eostre (a Germanic goddess?)
Yule, “Christmas
time” < Geol, the winter month
Drihten (a
military leader) used for the Lord
Lexical Borrowings in OE:
Loanwords: where
they come from, how they change
Main sources:
Latin (in three
phases)
Scandinavian / Old Norse
(the language of Viking invaders)
Latin:
Latin borrowings
occur in three distinct phases, which we can tell based on sound changes the
words have undergone, as well as comparison with other Gmc
languages
PHASE 1: Before
“449”
Anglo-Saxons on Continent:
words
borrowed by pagan Germans from Contact with
—show up in all
Germanic languages
NOT subject to
Grimm’s/Verner’s Laws
(proof that they are not just I-E cognates)
Lots of trade/luxury items
not
so much the “law/philosophy stuff”
OE cese “cheese” (< L caseus)
(did not
become H)
OE belt (< L balteus)
(did not become P)
OE palatization
before front vowels affects early loanwords:
/k/ > /č/
caseus > “cheese”
/sk/ > /š/ discus > “dish”
(but coquina > “kitchen”)
PHASE 2:
Borrowings from Christianization:
Even this happens
in phases: at two key times
King Alfred
translations (cf. 900)
Benedictine
Reform (cf. 1000)
cruc
sanct
(does survive)
creda
mæsse
organe
(from ORGANUM)
Later borrowing are not
subject to OE palatization:
relic
< L reliqua (not relich)
CELTIC LOANS:
Just about zilch!
Britons were not interested/
completely overcome
Some place names
SCANDINAVIAN /
Old Norse
Very important
Many of these
don’t show up until Middle English, but certain entered the language during OE
period
Their languages
were very close; likely mutually
intelligible
Intense language
contact
OE and ON have
many cognates which were ultimately BOTH kept in Mod English, usually with
slightly different meanings
Old Eng Old
Norse
shirt
skirt
from
fro
rear
raise
edge “to egg”
whole hal
shatter scatter
Note Old English
palatalization!
Many ON words completely replaced OE
ones:
take
vs. niman
Semantic loan:
an
OE cognate of a ON word takes on the meaning of the Norse word (without
changing its OE form)
dream
(OE ‘joy’)
with
(OE ‘against’)
bread
(OE ‘bit’)
How to tell ON
words?
palatalization
is absent:
skill
keel
kettle
get
give
call
(vs. ceallan)
Super-intense borrowing:
bilingual or mutually intelligible:
Basic verbs (give, get)
pronouns!
they, them, their,
even
a form of the verb to be: are
